TrustTips. Recovering trust

Even if you have the best team in the world, trust might break down sometimes. Below you can find some tips how to restore trust. I hope it helps you to take control of the situation.

Don’t postpone a hard talk

Regardless of which team member was the cause of the destruction of trust, the situation is usually not convenient or comfortable for the whole team. It is very difficult to start a dialogue and we try to avoid any hard talk about this problem, hoping that time will heal the wound. This approach is a big mistake.

Remember that if you have a dead fish, tomorrow it will smell worse than today.

A conversation with adults

Instead of taking a judgmental position, try to use facts and observations from each side. Often this step reveals a simple misunderstanding of what happened. In this case the violation can be corrected quite easily.When the cause is a misunderstanding, it helps to discuss how we can avoid it in the future. Maybe both sides will not have to rebuild trust again.

Make a positive plan

The question to be asked here is: “What should happen in the future for us to trust each other completely?”. Pay attention to what your colleagues are saying.  What’s our first step? What we need to change in our behaviour? What about mistakes and errors?

Don’t forget to agree at the end to a regular review: “Let’s come back in a month to see how we’re doing and how we’re doing with our plan”.

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